And this beauty might have been for him, was still his, if he chose.

A word from out of the wilderness, a few lines that he might write to-night-- With a sudden jerk Steele sat bolt upright.

One after another he crumpled the sheets of paper in his hand and tossed all but the signature page into the fire.

The last sheet he kept, studied it for a little--as if her name were the answer to a problem--then laid it aside.
For a few moments there remained still the haunting sweetness of the hyacinth.

When it was gone, he gave a last searching sniff, rose to his feet with a laugh in which there was some return of his old spirit, hid that final page of her letter in his traveling kit and proceeded to refill his pipe.
More than once Philip Steele had told himself that he was born a century or two after his time.